Producer: Atlantis
Retail Price: £1.99
Author: P & J Sutton

In the past we had caveman, in the present we have commuter man, and in the future, according to this game from ATLANTIS, we have moron (plausible enough, I think). You find yourself on a moron spaceship orbiting 250 miles above, errr, wherever you are. But never mind where you are it's what you've got to do which is important - find the three pillars of time (past, present, future) secreted about the spaceship by the devious moron captain. Some very useful abbreviations are described on the cover including G for GET, T for TAKE, and O for OPEN - commands so useful I found myself still trying to use them on the next adventure reviewed, to no avail!

Oh, so that's where you are, in a teleport in the good old UK. You collect the torch and spacesuit, which is automatically worn (checked by looking up your inventory with I). Since you are told the teleport button is marked 'press', and no other direction is allowed, it seems the only way forward is to press it. 'Everything is dark' is the result but getting the right words to get the torch on isn't half a struggle. The unfriendliness here took my mind back to the days when you just slung any old illogical couplings at an adventure until it gave in and let you through. The pictures which accompany the first few frames are rudimentary, but passable for £1.99.

Onto the flight deck and we have a situation so simple it's either a parody of stuffy adventures or a parody of pathetic adventures (a bit like 'Ever Decreasing Circles' on TV which is so sparse and deadpan it borders on being funny). Here we have a red button, a yellow lorry, I mean button, a green button, a blue button, and of course a lever. Two of these buttons turn force fields off, one normally turns the lights on (but the fuse is missing) and another starts the ship's self destruct sequence. I'll leave you to find out which causes what to happen!

The lever, naturally enough, is stuck. There is indeed yet another option at this stage; pressing the teleport button once more, but this simply has you ending the game without any of the pillars of time - and a score of zero percent.

Shortly, a moron appears, welcomes you aboard the ship and offers the assistance of his colleagues who'll help whenever they can. So, it's just the captain who's a villain; a reassuring thought this. Unfortunately, there are other pasties willing to make up for the moron's hospitality - like the wolves who make a meal of you unless you deal with them within a very few moves. But wait a minute, perhaps the moron crew aren't so friendly. They later ask you to stay for lunch and then nearly forget to tell you that you may be on the menu!

In the limited time I had to play this game I never quite got on top of the wolves. There is a great deal of spaceship to explore in the few moves the wolves allow you. There are the upper, middle and lower transit bays, and the recreational area at the very bottom. On this lowest level I tried locking myself variously in the steel telephone box and the wolves'cage itself without success, the wolves always miraculously getting to me to munch my bones to calcium biscuits. Even the laser rifle and grenade from the armoury on the lower transit level didn't provide much help - I only succeeded in blowing myself up with the grenade! Still it's nice for a change to leave a review with a puzzle to whet the player's appetite.

For £1.99 Moron has some nice touches and I really enjoyed playing it.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: not difficult
Graphics: neat
Presentation: pleasant
Input facility: v/n
Response: Quill

Better by far from the budget chappies is Moron, not from outer space but from Atlantis also £1.99. Can you teleport aboard a Moron spaceship, find the three missing Pillars of Time and teleport back to earth again? You've a RAMSAVE facility to help you, graphics (which are generally good) can be on or off, and even the HELP command occasionally works. Once you've activated the teleport and reached the ship's flight deck, you find a variety of coloured buttons, that perform different functions... Okay, so one of them's bound to self-destruct the ship, but with RAMSAVE that's not too annoying. The ship itself has three levels, each of them fairly large, and as your oxygen and torch batteries don't last very long you have to make sure you locate the replacements for each as you explore. Finding the fuse to fix the lighting system would help as well. You'll encounter friendly robots and cuddly droids, also not-so-cuddly wolves, though goodness knows how they got on board. No matter, the whole thing give you plenty of exploring and plenty of fun.

Label: Atlantis
Author:
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Gary Rook

Morons is a budget adventure game well worth the few pence it costs. This isn't to say it's a great game - it's not - but it is good value for money.

The plot, as you would expect, it's all pretty moronic. A race of space-going idiots have secreted the Three Pillars of Time - Past, Present and Future (naturally) - in their spaceship, which is now in a parking orbit around Earth. Being not overly endowed with the old grey matter, they've managed to forget where they have been hidden.

Your job, and you have chosen to accept it, is to find the Three Pillars of Time, and return to Earth.

It's not as easy as it might sound, though. You only have limited oxygen for your space suit, and batteries for your torch. Spare tanks and batteries are located at various points throughout the ship, but if you run out of either, tough.

What's more, the crew of the good ship whatever-it's-called have filled it with a collection of pets. If you're not careful, said pets will enjoy having you for dinner.

Plus, of course, there are various puzzles and challenges spread liberally throughout the ship. These need to be solved or avoided.

Moron has no pretensions. It's a straightforward adventure with reasonable but not stunning graphics. The puzzles seem to be fairly tough, but we're not talking Infocom or Level 9 here. If you can accept the slight oddball mixture of science fiction, fantasy and the commonplace, then you should have a good time.

SUPPLIER: Atlantis Software, 28 Station Road, London, SE25 5AG
MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £1.99 Mail order - add 36p for P&P

This is about a race of people known as the Morons, who, whilst joyriding in space, stumbled upon and stole the three Pillars of Time. The ship's captain, deciding to keep them for himself, removed them from the safe, and hid them around the ship.

When the theft was discovered, the Moron crew killed him, but being thickos, they forgot to torture him first, so failed to learn where the Pillars were hidden. Thus, whilst searching for them, they let the ship drift out of control into a collision course with Earth.

Your job is to teleport to the ship, find the Pillars, and get away with them. As the game starts you find yourself in a teleport room, all set to go.

The ship is a big one, and on each level within it, there is a large network of corridors and cabins. Some of them are mighty strange, too - like the execution room which has three levers ranging from Nasty to Very Nasty.

There's the usual radio room, electrical room, and many others, including the ship's cinema.

Being a Moronic Ship, it appears to be coal fired. How else can the pile of coal and coke found in the fuel store be explained? This is a walk-about game - you will need to find out what's around, before going in for the kill.

All the while you are searching the ship, and deciding what to do with the various diverse objects that you are amassing, you are consuming oxygen, and battery power.

Scattered around the ship are spares. They cannot be carried, but can be changed on the spot with the help of a Moron Robot.

It pays to keep a careful map, so as to head in the right direction at top speed, when the warning is given that a replacement is needed. The number of moves allowed after the warning is given is fairly small.

Moron is a Quilled graphic adventure, and by having relatively short text, packs a lot of objects and locations into its single load. Therein come the puzzles - fitting the right object to its puzzle. Because of the diverse nature of the objects and puzzles, the game is lacking a little in atmosphere, but don't let that put you off.

It has to be said Atlantis have done it again! There's plenty of adventure there for your £1.99, and it's worth playing!

Atlantis
£1.99

Following the Marie Celeste earlier in the year, another science-fiction game from Atlantis, which also includes elements of time travel - killing two adventure cliches with one stone? Particularly stupid aliens called - you've guessed it - morons, stumble across the Pillars Of Time and promptly lose them in their spaceship. Said vessel is now on collision course with earth so you have a limited time to fulfill your task, which, naturally, is to collect the pillars and save the world.

Quilled and Patched, Moron offers split screen graphics at nearly all the numberous locations, quite a feat given the memory limitations. These are attractive enough but look incredibly similar, even though there are subtle differences. Then again, I suppose a large spaceship would appear somewhat monotonous.

To fit them all in, the text had to be sacrificed, or perhaps massacred would be more appropriate. There is not description at all, just a location title like "The Teleport Room". There are many objects lying around, which compensates a little, but purists should avoid. Vocabulary is strict but not awful.

I've said before that science fiction games tend to bore me, and Moron has nothing new to offer. However, some of the problems here might while away the odd hour, though what I've seen strikes me as too easy for expert adventurers.

Moron is not a bad effort but strikes me as amazingly average, nothing new or notable. If there's nothing better around then this is no rip-off, but neither is it a must buy.